Evil Cat (1987)

Directed by Dennis Yu, famous for giving the world The Beasts, Evil Cat is another extremely entertaining crazy motherf**ker of a movie. You know the stuff that only could have been made in Hong Kong during the eighties. Produced by trash-maestro Jing Wong (a very underrated filmmaker by the way), this delivers a lot of stuff in it’s running time and even have time to throw in some minor gore and of course the traditional, and unavoidable, slapstick.

A cat-demon has been chasing a family for ages now, but has not been visible for 50 years. That’s because the last one fighting the cat managed to lock it inside a well and then put a big stone plate on top of the well, with some useful magic spells written on it. A nice trick to keep demons, ghosts and other irritating and slightly dangerous beings far away. But of course, as you might have guessed, the cat is unleashed again after some curious workers decide to take a look under the stone plate and everyone is once again in danger! This time its Master Cheung (Chia-Liang Liu) who needs to fight the demon, and he get good help from Long (Mark Cheng) who’s boss was the first one to get possessed and also are in danger of being killed!

Like many Hong Kong movies, especially in the horror genre, from this time I’ve experienced that the first half often is filled with scenes to make the movie longer, and so even with Evil Cat. Not that this is a bad thing, because if the filler scenes is good then I’ll totally buy it. Evil Cat really becomes a great movie after 45 minutes when the action is larger, the violence is more graphic and the tension is higher. The cat itself is a possessed woman for the most of the time, screaming and roaring, using its hands/paws to kill and decapitate. The stunts are well-made and the fighting filled with energy without being similar to Jackie Chan and his brothers in martial arts cinema. This feels more like old-school kung fu, but with colorful lights pumping in the background and hairs bigger than a real cat.

The ending is the true highlight of the movie, and if I may go so far: a classic scene. The cat-demon has materilized once more and is killing her way through the police station. Lots of squibs, two more gory scenes and some very fine action. It’s very eighties, very colorful and very good entertaining. A perfect sibling to the police station scene in Lady Terminator (which is a LOT gorier, so don’t expect a similar bloodbath).

Out on a cheap and widescreen DVD from Fortune Star and a must buy for everyone into weird and crazy Hong Kong horrors!